Boca 4, or Secrets

There are things I've been forbidden to speak of, to write of, and I am generally awful at keeping such promises. I'm an artist, after all; it's my job to expose the unspoken commonalities among us. But once in awhile, I keep silent out of respect for those who aren't ready to have their secrets released to the greater, anonymous world.

But here is a cultural secret I've learned this week: my grandmama's given me several gifts these past few days, some right out of her closet. This one means a lot to me:


It's a Jewish star necklace that unfolds into a string of butterflies. The design was invented during the Spanish Inquisition, when anyone with a hint of Jewishness in their family was forced to hide it, or flee. She shows me where the royalty hides in my blood, reminds me of those who light candles in their basements without praying, without knowing. Those who would never think that a swarm of butterflies could come together so coherently.


I come from a place where I don't have to hide, where I can use this necklace as a teaching tool, showing children a relic from a time before our memories. I have justified my own magen David (jewish star) to my mother's parents, who don't believe in wearing one's religion on one's sleeve. I wonder if they would like this, Ashkenazim that they are.


And still, her words are with me, not this grandma, but my mother's mother, the one who remembers hiding the way some adults remember their childhood monsters under the bed when they can't sleep. As I walked out the door on my way to Europe for six months, the last thing she said before goodbye was this: "Dandoo, if you think there will be trouble - put that under your shirt, okay?"




I'll wear this gift over the holidays this year as a reminder of things hidden, things survived, things discovered. Like Emmanuel Ringleblum's milk cans buried in Warsaw for scholars to find, these stories have been waiting. Waiting for me to find the place where the butterfly wings meet to form a star.